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Opportunity is Everywhere
- Victoria Mason
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
There are certain accents that stop you in your tracks when you're a long way from home. This one was unmistakably Merseyside, I knew it instantly. I grew up on the Wirral. I turned around, said hello and that was that. We were off.
She was warm and friendly. We talked about where we were from, what we were up to in the South, bits and pieces. And then, as so often happens when two strangers feel comfortable enough to be honest with each other, the conversation went somewhere more important. There is someone in her life who needs help.
I didn't need to say very much. I listened, I asked a couple of questions, I talked to her about Own My Life, how we help women build their understanding of what healthy relationships look like. A gentle signpost to the service I work with in the region she lives in.
She had been a teacher, working in safeguarding her whole life and now wanted to understand more about how and where she could learn more about facilitating Own My Life.
There are so many women, and so many people who care about women, who simply haven't found their way to the right tools yet. That's not a failure. It's just a gap — and gaps are there to be filled.
My name is Victoria Mason, and I am Own My Life's Partnership Development Volunteer. What that actually means is that I spend a lot of time talking to people building relationships with organisations, practitioners, and communities across the UK who might not yet know that Own My Life exists, or who are ready to bring it into their work.
I came to this role after working in policing, in the charity sector and in community safety partnerships. And I know that the difference between a woman finding the right support and not finding it might just be one right place, right time moment.
And it turns out you can do it on a train just as well as in a meeting room.
By the time she got off, my new friend had the name of a service, an understanding of what Own My Life is and who it's for and, I hope, a sense that she wasn't navigating any of this alone.
Own My Life is always looking for people who believe in what we do and want to help spread the word. You don't need to be a domestic abuse professional. You don't need any specific background. You just need to care about women having access to the tools that help them understand their own lives and make informed choices about their futures.
If that sounds like you, or if you work with an organisation that might want to know more, we would love to hear from you.
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